Full of Dread

I am getting really stressed out with work. You can tell because it is 11pm on Sunday night and I am on here whining about it when I should be enjoying the last few moments of the weekend...

I have had a lovely weekend, doing absolutely nothing except wandering aroung the house doing the odd chore and eating terrible but yumptious food... But there, in the back of my mind, has been my PhD, worries whirring and gaining momentum until POP! This evening, I thought about what I have to do in the next few months and a lurch of dread heaved and settled in my stomach...

Ug. I am dreading India, I am dreading the work, the interviews, the heat, the worry and the whole lack of control that is doing fieldwork. This type of work, that unfolds in front of you and that is entirely organic, is so at odds with the work I have been doing in the UK which is very tightly controlled, meticulous in detail and focus - from the scope of the reading to the references. I prefer this, I work well with it. But fieldwork bah. And I really want to enjoy India, to get something out of it, but feel I will spend the whole time feeling claustrophobic and horribly guilty if I am not out tracking down people to badger and get to talk to me. When I don't want to to talk to them! Arg! I am a terrible researcher, I am waaaaaaay too shy. I know I should take it one step at a time, one thing at a time, but I can't help but think about all of it in one go - the whole three weeks of trying to interview, trying to avoid interviewing, and trying to get my RA to help me. And all whilst trying to avoid doing any volunteering - I really don't want to waste time doing that over the three weeks. And trying to avoid the local food without being rude to potential interviewees! And trying to avoid local transport (too hot, too squashed, too bumpy - I was normal once but now I am a really sensitive Bean-carrier and my adventurous spirit has gone to ground, for at least a year...) Oh I whine. But I worry.

AND THEN, I have this journal paper! For a massively famous international journal! On a topic and with a thesis I have barely researched but in a fit of madness wrote an abstract for and handed in! I will work very hard until Monday next, then will have to leave it to concentrate on packing and planning for India. But until then I am working *really* hard, and aim to have some kind of plan written to send to my Sup and get inital feedback on the potential of it to work on when I come back. This is a good plan. But I am so scared. It has to be at least 7,000wds. What if I don't have 7,000 words?! And THEN it is in on the 15 Sept - and I have the presentation - at an international conference, a month later. I am dreading it already! I am terrified! I can't present! I haven't even been to a conference yet! (I know, I am a terrible academic and yes I also wonder how I got on this course and got funding! All I can say is that I love my topic and subject, but hate everything else!) ARG!

I am a stresshead. It is not that I tink I can't do it, it is that I know I *have* to do it that is terrifying! I don't know how. I just don't know. *Holds head in hands*

Another fine mess I have got us into...

Thinking of doing a PhD?!! DON'T!!! Get a nice desk job! Go on nice holidays that don't mean interviewing anyone! Go to conferences that mean you don't need to present!

Although I say this, but when I have gone to India and got info and finally completed that part of the research, when I have written and been published (a lifelong dream, I have always wanted to be a published writer), and when I have presented and got through it without dying on the spot, when it is October the 19th and I have got through *all* of this and finally, finally I can exhale without feeling sick... WOW. That's one thing about not being allowed to stand still for long with a PhD- you have to keep achieving whether you like it or not... And then my darling baby in Dec/Jan. What a year. Mental.

Tomorrow I am not putting on the laptop and will work my butt off reading the last of these papers, then in the week I will review where I am on the plan of ideas I have been keeping as I go along, then will find out my second stage of report reading. Then I need to read the critical literature around my topic, and add my own thoughts. Then we are pretty much there.

Oh god I am so scared!!!

x J