One foot in front of the other...

I am so close to done that I can practically smell the sweet glory...

I have a couple of paragraphs to work in one paper. The other is still really drafty, but starting to shape up.

I should have been done by now. I'm not quite, but soon. Just need to put one foot in front of the other, a few more times, and I'll be finished. A little bit easier said than done right now, but it'll happen. If not by the end of Saturday, then on Sunday.

Mountains in my mind

My thought process, as I try to synthesize my thoughts about all these books, is speeding up. My body is slowing down.

Officially, my remaining two papers should be due tomorrow at 4:30 PM. My committee is generously extending this, for reasons I won't detail here.

Medical concerns unfortunately might mean postponing my oral. We'll see. I hope not. I don't particularly want the comps process to be longer, but at the same time, I am grateful that they are accommodating. I was afraid that asking for mercy would be met with stern refusals from professors whose hands are tied by policy; I needn't have worried. We all share a single goal: for me to get through this process with minimal adverse effects to my general well-being. At the very least, this lessens my anxiety.

Today I've situated notes on a few texts where I want them to be in my papers, and written some solid paragraphs. If I could sit up and type for an extended length of time, I would be able to finish by the end of the day. I am hoping now for Saturday, so that I can still have time afterwards to prepare for the oral, still scheduled for Wednesday. I like where one of my papers is going, in terms of writing and analysis. The other is a bit more typical, and less fun to write, but I'll have to satisfy myself with something fairly ordinary. I'd been looking forward to taking a long hike in the mountains after finishing in the afternoon tomorrow. I suppose the hiking will be metaphorical rather than literal; I'll take a walk through the woods of my words, the mountains in my mind, barrens of my brain.

Kicked today's ass. But today has kicked my neck.

I'm home and in bed now, at an hour when I have more often still been on campus this week. I've hit a wall -  sleep or risk stumbling into traffic. My neck has gotten bad enough that it hurts to move my head, so tomorrow I'll be making a pilgrimage to the health centre before another day of writing. I don't have time for this...hopefully they can refer me for a massage, or chiropractic work, or something that will fix this, stat.

Today at 4:30 I handed in two more papers. Just two to go! One is going to be a pretty straightforward consideration of imtersectionality; for the other I'm going on a bit of a metaphorical limb, though not too far out. Stay tuned. I'm excited for where this one can go conceptually.

The excitement of the day came at 1pm, when I was midway through typing the sentence, "feminine distribution of pubic hair." We were about to go for lunch when the fire alarm rang. I think I terrified my friend who shares my office by screaming; I'm not sure how loud my scream was but it was probably not an expected reaction! We ended up all going to the pub in another building rather than just the cafeteria downstairs. I suspect that the alarm was pulled by an undergrad who didn't want to deal with their exams. Luckily the interruption only slightly slowed down my work for the day.

The plan now is to get a solid 8 hours of sleep, then head up to the health centre to be there when they open and beg for an appointment. It's tricky at this time of year, since lots of people are trying to get sick notes for exams. Then I'll follow that by hopefully getting both my remaining papers at least into detailed outlines with the occasional paragraph. I'd love to have completely polished at least one by the end of the day.

It's been a hard day's night...

Today was an uphill battle, largely against the little voice in my head that is telling me that there is not enough time, and that I cannot possibly do this. I've spent the past 11 hours on campus; most of that time was spent writing, with one lunch break, one errand to pick up a desk from another building on campus (a more ergonomic desk for just $20? Amazing), and one tearful moment in a professor's office. I am lucky to have very supportive faculty on my committee; just minutes after panicking about the time crunch in one field supervisor's office, my senior supervisor sent me an email saying not to panic, that it will all work out. They reassure me, probably until they are blue in the face, that I will pass this. I really do need to start believing them! I am glad to have them on my side.

A few of my friends have been ever so solid this week. Checking in, offering chats and tea, and in one case, even bringing me food. My friend who shares my office left at about 5pm, then stopped by again later in the evening to deliver me snacks, including chocolate. I was so grateful that I cried.

At this point, I have finished my third of six essays, pending a final proofread, and am almost done with the fourth. It is hard to let these essays go, as they are too short to possibly be definitive. I fluctuate between not caring, so long as I pass, and dreaming of perfection. I know that is not attainable, so I should probably set my sights somewhere in the middle - analytically solid, perhaps, rather than argumentatively groundbreaking.

This evening, comps is quite literally a pain in my neck. The pain in my right shoulder and moving up my neck is making sitting up more and more difficult each day. I'll have to see a doctor after this is over and get checked out; it feels like more than just tension and poor posture, like perhaps I pulled something. It's best when I am lying down or moving; worst when I am sitting up. Hopefully it will subside once I am spending less time at the computer.

Plans for tomorrow are to wake up early, proofread paper 3, polish and proofread paper 4, hand them in, and launch into papers 5 and 6. If I keep myself busy, perhaps I will be less anxious. I also hope to go for a run, or at least a swim; today I was too anxious and in too much pain to get any real exercise.

Four questions

Today, I handed in my first two essays. Four more to go! Two of these are due on Wednesday, and I now have bits and pieces of drafts for each. I anticipate tomorrow being a very long day as I work to finish and then polish them. I am becoming nervous about the time crunch that is impending. In order to finish the two papers for Friday on time, I really should have these done by late afternoon tomorrow, so that I can spend the evening outlining and composing Friday's essays and then proofread the Wednesday ones in the morning (morning gives me the clearest proof reading, I've found). I don't want to find out what happens if I hand in a drafty-looking paper, or worse yet, notes or partial notes. I assume I would fail, and I know I have the intellectual ability to pass. I'm already regretting spending so much time focusing on the liberal order framework. Failure would really sting. Ok. That was the understatement of the century.

I can't wait to share these with people. I'm not sure how original my arguments are (probably not exceptionally) but I am overall proud with what I've written so far. I'm not sure how kosher that is, however, so they'll remain hidden until after my oral.

On the topic of kosher...this was the most meagre Seder I've ever eaten: a tin of lentil soup, microwaved in the graduate lounge. I've revised the traditional Passover four questions to reflect my new circumstances: why am I eating a tin of lentil soup? Why did I open the door to yell at the undergraduates studying in the hallway outside? Why am I reading notes about violence instead of the Haggadah? Why am I in the office for yet another late night? Once this is done, I'll celebrate with some of my favourite Pesach treats. Note to self: in the future, don't book academic engagements that conflict with holidays!

On all other pesachs, we have a Seder with friends or family. Why on this night am I alone in the office?
On all other pesachs, we have a feast. Why on this night am I eating canned soup?
On all other pesachs, we open the door to eliyahu. Why on this night did I open the door to tell the undergrads cramming for exams outside to shut the **** up?

On all other pesachs, we read from the Haggadah. Why on this night am I reading from my notes about the gendered dimensions of colonial violence?
If I only pass these comps, DAYENU.

"One midnight gone!"

Technically, six midnights gone and a seventh approaching, but that doesn't jive as well with the lyrics from Into the Woods.

I've finished the two papers for one of my fields. After much deliberation, I removed the Octopus of Liberalism metaphor from my state formation paper - defining liberalism, in my paper, is now described merely as a complex endeavor, rather than "akin to dressing an octopus in formal wear." The old version will live on in my heart.

Tomorrow, I plan to proofread these papers early in the day, and then get them off my chest (I'll post them here, too, on the off-chance that somebody out there is truly dreaming of reading my comps essays...). I can never proofread too many times - today I misplaced an L, so that Greer's "Peasant, Lord, and Merchant" turned into "Pleasant, Lord, and Merchant" and "public women" having a connotation of promiscuity turned into "pubic women." Tempted as I was to leave the typos for comic relief for my examiners, I decided to air on the side of caution/sensibility.

After proofing, it'll be time to iron out the outlines for my two gender papers - one addressing knowledge creation, and the other colonial violence in Canada. I have a general concept for each, and notes that exceed the word limit for the papers, but they are in no semblance of organization at the moment. By the end of the day, that'll change. I'll be on campus tomorrow, to take advantage of the chance for a mountain hike as a short break and to congratulate friends who are defending their prospectuses tomorrow and who will certainly deserve a drink afterwards. Since I'm hoping to get an early start on the mountain (of work, atop the mountain where my office sits), I'm having an "early" night tonight. Here's to another good day.

Changes in Scale

I remember starting grade twelve, daunted by the task of my International Baccalaureate extended essay. At 4000 words, it was the longest writing assignment I'd ever faced. I'd completed the bulk of my research in the spring and summer, leaving the fall term to write a draft and the winter to revise it. I remember a significant degree of stress that fall, but the final product was an A essay, which was subsequently published.

Things have changed. The two essays I've written this week (ok, so one of them is not-quite-a-draft at this point - but it will be finished tomorrow) are cumulatively double the length of my extended essay, and the same length as the honours thesis I wrote in my third year of university. That also took me the better part of a semester. All six comps essays will collectively approach the length of my master's thesis.

Times have changed, and scales have changed. I shudder to think of the weeks leading up to the submission of my dissertation. If writing and analysis are muscles, perhaps I am training to be a body-builder.

Today was a good day. I wrote for most of the day, and have completed the most challenging of the six essays. The second essay is approaching draft status - some bits are still in point form or "insert an example here!" but it's coming along. I have four more papers that I have only done preliminary work on, but they concern concepts that I've been engaging with more often during the past year and a half, and are questions that can be reasonably tackled within the given word limit. They won't be easy, and the time constrains are starting to worry me, but at least I am not concerned about them conceptually.

Usually, I work best very late at night. This week, that hasn't been the case; if I'm still trying to hash out ideas after midnight, I've become despondent and self-critical, and emotionally fallen apart. Tonight, I'm going to go to bed before that happens, so that this can be a comps day with no tears - the first one, so far.