So. I have to turn in my dissertation on thursday. A little less than a week. I'm almost done with the writing-just a little bit more of the conclusions, an abstract, and some serious editing to go. 220 pages so far, more than 50,000 words. It feel like a lot, and then I remember that this is five and a half years of my life and it feels like a little less.
I am endlessly tired. You have to understand, I am a girl who considers making it all the way through the daily show staying up "late". And I'm in the Central Time Zone, so that's in bed by 10:30, pretty much every night. And yet, the last three weeks I don't think I've gone to bed before midnight once. I'm adjusting, slowly, with the help of excessive amounts of caffeine. But I forgot how draining losing a half hour or hour or two hours of sleep is, especially when it happens every day for a month. Plus, writing full time plus is not exciting. I mean, if it were just normal hours, or if I got to do other things intermixed throughout the day, it would be fine and I would even like it,, I think. But right now I spend 12 hours a day sitting in my little chair. Maybe I mix it up and spend six hours in the chair and six in a coffee shop. But it's the same, all day, and it is mind-numbingly dull. Add that to a bipolar diet of crappy "writing food" (yes I think I will eat this bag of doritos for today) mixed with anxious and distracted lack of significant meals it makes for a jittery distracted tired weepy girl.
I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel though. For better or worse, this will be out of my hands by Thursday. I will have done my part. I will of course need to defend, but I'm a pretty good speaker, I know my field well, and I'm excellent at thinking on my feet/BS. I'm not terribly worried about that part. And the nice thing is, that once done I will never, ever have to do this again. I will be done with getting a PhD, forever.
Still, I have about a week to go, and I have to give it my all the whole time. It's twelve thirty, and I have one last section to finish before bed.
