Motivation

I don't have it. I don't know why.

The last month or so has been a low period for me at school, and there's no reason it should be so. The paper we sent in (remember Einstein shilling for it?) got good reviews, without major revisions needed. In a normal world, I would have jumped right on the fairly small amount of work needed to revise and resubmit it, and my first publication in this field would be on its way. Instead, the work I've done on the paper has been somewhat haphazard and disorganized, and now, a month after the reviews, I still have quite a bit to finish. I met with Dr. Nice and Dr. Brilliant this morning, and apparently my mad rush over the last day to get organized was successful, because they didn't scold me for not having enough done. I'm not even sure what to make of that, honestly. Did I actually (and accidentally) do a reasonable amount of work? Do they just not expect more from me? Have they been so distracted that they don't realize how much time has passed? Am I that good at faking it?

I seem to get through each small milestone all right (for the most part), but graduation seems impossibly far away. It's Sisyphean for me - I have accumulated an impressive series of passed milestones in my research, but I'm still not in a place to write my damn proposal, even. It seems like I'll be sitting in this cube forever, ferrying the kids back and forth from day care to camp at the Y to home, pumping breastmilk every three hours, watching other students finish coursework and defend their dissertations.

It's habit, now, to maintain the status quo, instead of pushing hard to propose and then finish my dissertation. At one point, I took on this attitude purposefully. I didn't want to rush through; I was busy being a mom and a person outside of school. DT has a fulfilling job, and we're not dying to move soon. I thought I was doing myself a favor to allow myself to enjoy the process and not try to rush through school for false reasons. Unfortunately, now, I'd like to change my attitude and it's simply not happening. On some level, I've lost the certainty that I even will finish. That's not good, folks. I'm just not sure how to turn it around.

Even worse, I just spent a good five minutes trying to write a limerick about my own procrastination. I kept coming back to rhyming "Ruth" with "long in the tooth," though, so I'm just going to leave that project for another day.