Monday, April 16, 2007

stalled

I'm in Boston right now staying with a few friends as my husband gets ready to run the marathon (which starts in about a half an hour). The weather, by the way, is AWFUL.

But that's not the point -- the point is that we're staying with a friend from grad school and had dinner with two other friends from grad school as well as a few non-grad school friends ALL of whom keep asking about my dissertation. It's frustrating not to be able to tell them much. I'm stalled in grading and grading and, well, grading and probably won't be able to really get back on track anytime soon. That's frustrating. But I might try to write another twenty pages by the end of the month. I want to start writing about the similarities and differences between Rogerian argument and invitational rhetoric. I need to figure out, too, if Rogerian argument could be considered a feminist rhetoric. I'm not sure yet. So it's stuff I'm interested in, but I don't have enough time. Or I'm not using the time that I have productively. The latter is more likely (and more like me). The first priority, though, is grading my students issue analyses. And I'm guessing grading and the collection of student work that I edit will take up most of my time until mid-June.

Better email my chair and let her know that the odds of this chapter getting done by the end of April are, well, not so good.

But, to switch over to a positive note, I'm still excited about my work and am sort of freakishly excited about having the summer and next year just to write (and apply for jobs). Such a dork.

3 comments:

Billie said...

Abby-- It's interesting that your husband is about to run the Boston marathon-- in such awful conditions, even. Running a marathon is hard enough without adding snow and ice to the mix.

But then, writing the dissertation is like running a marathon. It's not a seminar paper (a 5K or a fun-run). The marathon of dissertation writing takes time and training and endurance and will. You have all those things. But know that you can't write this marathon of a dissertation (like the mixed metaphors?!?!?!?!?!) too quickly.

Hang in there. Other things come up.... like grading at the end of the semester. You'll get back to it all. We all will.

grumpyABDadjunct said...

I'm stuck in grading hell as well, I have a feeling that no dissertation progress will be made until the middle of May. It is frustrating but sometimes you just have to make money to support the diss writing.

Hope the marathon goes well for your husband!

Abby said...

Thanks all. You're right, I know. I just feel like I'm spinning my wheels a bit, you know?

The marathon went pretty well. My husband finished in the top 7% overall. He was hoping to come in under three hours, but the weather wasn't really in his favor (nor were the hills) so he's pretty happy with his 3:06.