TSS: Absentee-ism Blogging
Happy Sunday, all! It’s late in the day but I thought I’d throw up a quick post, just so you all know that I’m still alive, and that I haven’t been suffocated under the stack of journal articles I need to read, or given myself brain damage from banging my forehead against my keyboard in the attempt to shake loose a dissertation.
So, yes, still here, still sprinting (or at least jogging) down the last stretch of graduate school, still busy enough that finding the mental energy and free time to sit down with a book is a daunting prospect, especially when there’s a stack of DVDs nearby that require almost no brain power at all.
I did manage to get one book read this weekend – Hearts at Stake by Alyxandra Harvey – and it was good and fun and quick-moving and thoroughly escapist and didn’t make me think too hard, which was what I needed. But now I’m staring down my stack of books that I need to read – library books and ARCs and books for blog tours and whatnot, and while I’m sure they’re all great, none of them quite look like the literary candy that is about all that I can handle at the moment. Maybe I’ll just pop in a DVD instead…
Fyrefly's Book Blog 
Sometimes it’s just hard to fit everything in. I totally understand about needing an escape that doesn’t require any brain power right now.
Good luck with school!
Hang in there. Repeat after me: This, too, shall pass. This, too, shall….
You can totally do it. Finishing my dissertation was one of the most excruciating processes of my life. (You can see me going through the exact same thing on my blog in the spring of 2008 – *which feels like it just happened*). But don’t worry: the dissertation is lodged in there somewhere, and you WILL manage to shake it loose. And be sure when you do that you mark the completion with something sharp and firm and final and celebratory. What happened to me and a lot of other friends is this: we were so exhausted after the diss was over that we just collapsed, feeling no sense of accomplishment or relief, just anxiety on exactly the same level as when we were trying to finish it. This is the very reason cultures invent ritual – to provide a sense of closure and transition that will less anxiety and give us permission to feel proud.
Happy (or the very least forward-moving) dissertating! I look forward to hearing more about it!
I loved Hearts at Stake for the exact same reason. :)
I’ve been buried under myself recently. I hope we both have a much more relaxing and literary March.