Quote of the Day

'For the first time I realised that there was another option other than feeling like crap about myself [...]. When we dislike a situation we're in, or when we deem ourselves or other people to be wrong, it's nearly impossible to move forward and transform. Beating ourselves up or complaining about something or someone is like digging a hole deeper right under our feet to get us more entrenched in whatever situation, relationship, or personal struggle we're facing. [...] This is true any time we let ourselves stay entrenched in shame, whatever the issue may be. It can be a very paralyzing emotion.'   (Kate Northrupp, Money: A Love Story)


Very true, no?.... This might have been taken straight out of a book on how to do your PhD. In fact, this is from a book on personal finance. I can't help but notice that how you feel about writing a PhD, and how you feel about your financial situations (both things to do with giving and receiving value, and both bound up with feelings of personal worth) are very much linked.

And now I'm off to do some work.

'Stop agonizing over perfection'

Something nice which I came across the other day, and which I've been wanting to share on here: this is a suggestion on how to think about your writing.

"Stop agonizing over perfection. [...] Instead, focus [on] offering value to others. This change of attitude made a huge difference for me and my book. I put a post-it by my laptop as a reminder every day, “How can I be most helpful to my reader?"

I think this might just be the perfect note-to-self for the odd (agonizing, perfectionist) PhD student.

You can find the whole piece here: http://positivewriter.com/a-survivors-guide-to-writing/

Have a great day, everybody!...



CN

Words of Wisdom: Randy Pausch, 'The Last Lecture'

I first heard about this around October last year, thanks to a friend who sent me the link, and I remember sitting in front of it and finding it absolutely wonderful. I sat and listened and watched and made inspirational notes in a beautiful notebook.

I am currently in the process of throwing away and dismembering lots of old notebooks (as I am about to move home/ country for a bit, in search of a new adventure; there's only so many notebooks you can take with you, or keep and store in someone else's garage, so I have made myself go through them and throw them away, shredding the odd page of handwritten wisdom. I don't need to keep them all. The Tidying Bible would tell you that it's actually better for you to throw away things like that than to hold on to them; conversely, storing piles and piles of information in your house, useful though they may seem, doesn't actually do anything good for your brain.)

So I am throwing out the notes I made on this, and I am finally getting round to sharing it with all the users of this blog:

There is a lecture series in America called the 'Last Lecture', where distinguished speakers are asked to deliver a lecture on the most important things they've learned. The idea is, if you had only one lecture left to give in your whole life, what would you like to teach people about?... For this particular speaker, Randy Pausch, the 'Last Lecture' was particularly meaningful: at the time of the lecture, he was dying of cancer.

He gives the most amazing advice on time management, positive thinking, and in general just having fun and getting on with it. (I cite a couple of inspirational quotes from some of his lectures at the end of a previous post.)

Here is a link to one of his talks to get you started; there are more online, including a fantastic talk on managing your time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Enjoy!

'Hate My PhD' - Best Of

Recently, sitting on a train and having nothing to do, I pulled out my mobile phone and started rereading some of my posts on this blog.

I had a lot of fun rereading some of these. If nothing else, at least the one thing I got out of my PhD is this little collection of nice writings... (And I did get a whole lot more out of it, too.)

So here are some of my favourite bits from this blog (selected for you in one handy post - for your amusement and joy) :

It was fun rereading the blog post called 'The End'. This is my absolute favourite post on this whole blog (I think you all know why!) In the days leading up to this blog post, I was already composing it delightedly in my head, half unable to believe that I would actually ever get to write these words (when it's two days to the deadline and you still have an unfinished conclusion and about 2, 348 footnotes to straighten out...) I really couldn't quite believe that I would ever get to write this one. And when I finally did sit down to write it... I don't think I've ever enjoyed writing anything more in my whole life.

I also liked writing 'Violation of Rules' and 'I Have a Dream'. The PhD wasn't all misery and difficulty, and even some of the frustrating and miserable bits could be turned on their head, and mined for anecdotal gold. I remember laughing over the Violation of Rules scenario with a lovely friend over an afternoon coffee on a London terrace (ahhh, the life of a PhD...) and I remember coming up with the 'men in white coats' line whilst chatting on the phone, while I joked about how I could maybe just 'phase out the PhD'...

I enjoyed musing over the inns and outs of my personality in 'Lastminute.com'. I subsequently found all my theories on 'being a last-minute person' to be wrong, however, when I discovered the Procrastination Bible in March 2013. I began to think that maybe there's no such thing as a last-minute person. I also began to just do stuff.

And here's another one I like - here are my Top Tips for Doing a PhD.

Happy reading!....

CN

'From Thesis to Book'

Some useful advice here from a kindly young academic on how to go about turning your thesis into a book:

http://frenchhistorysociety.co.uk/blog/?p=374

I am finding this all very useful right now.

'How to Write Everything'

I got a great book for Christmas, entitled 'How to Write Everything'. It's great stuff. It tells you how to write a screenplay, write an article for a magazine, write a novel...

Alas, it does not have a chapter on 'How to Write That Academic Article You Promised to Write Ages Ago (and Now Your Heart Isn't In It)'... (If only there was such a chapter, I would be so excited.)

A wise friend of mine once told me, 'If there is something you really really dread doing, then how about just... don't do it?... I was once supposed to make some changes in an article I was writing... and I just couldn't bring myself to do one particular part of it... and I thought, what would happen if I just - don't do it?... And I left it. And it never mattered.'

That's all nice, and that is actually very good advice, when you think about it; if it makes you feel a surge of dread and if the mere thought of it has you breaking out in hives, consider not doing it.

That's all very nice, but... I still feel like I have to do this article, which I promised to (and am contracted to) do. Somehow, I don't think a 'sorry, I just don't want to do it anymore', a month ahead of the deadline, will cut it.

Note to self: from now on, agree only to do those things which quite clearly bring me joy. Or maybe my note-to-self should be: from now on, say no to absolutely everything.

Mothers and PhD Students

I am working a little bit on The Thesis, soon to become The Book. Have reread the examiners’ reports (which say nice things and which also suggest many improvements); have opened the thesis and started to reread it, and have been struck by its beauty, clarity, and general amazingness, qualities which I never expected to find in there. (You remember those months on end when I worked and worked, getting more and more tired and frustrated, and no end seemed in sight?... This is what I was doing in those months, it transpires now: polishing, prettifying, making concise, making coherent. Rendering beautiful. It really is not bad, this thesis. To everyone who is struggling hopelessly with their thesis: it may not feel like it right now, but all this hard work IS making it better…)

In other news: this summer I read an article (which I have been trying, and failing, to hunt out again, so I could put it on here) about a group of mothers who were being interviewed because they had written and produced a play about motherhood. These women were speaking about the isolation and depression they had experienced as first-time, full-time mums; their play was their attempt to externalize some of the problems they’d faced, and to counter the the taboo nature of what they were feeling: depressed, lonely, isolated, struggling with a daunting, difficult task. It struck a chord; reading phrases such as ‘I felt alone’, ‘I felt isolated’, ‘It was too hard’, ‘I felt like I was failing’, I wondered if the new mother isn’t essentially facing some of the same issues as the struggling PhD student: a huge and daunting task, for which she feels ill-prepared; the feeling that there is not enough support from others; the feeling that the task in hand (looking after a baby/ writing a PhD project) is so monumentally important that the possibility of failing is not even to be contemplated; the guilt at not being ‘better’, the comparisons with more successful mothers/ colleagues, the feeling that you should be ‘good’ at this and should not be saying ‘this is too hard; I can’t do this.’

Having recently spent some time in the company of friends who have just become mums, and having admired how they cope with caring for their newborn offspring, I think my general observation would be: it IS kind of the same. It’s the same demons we’re all fighting.

It made me wonder: we feel very alone sometimes… and I wonder how many other people there are in this world, feeling just as alone, and falling prey to exactly the same demons, just dressed up in a different disguise. It made me feel a little bit more empathy towards the people I thought I know well, and the new people I meet.

For an earlier blog post on the link between babies and PhD theses, click here.