Say no and...

Why didn’t I post yesterday? I should post every day for these two months. Keep myself accountable. Besides this blog my support consists of only my husband. And his support amounts to saying things like “do not dare to come home before 9pm, stay at work and study”, “you have get up very early”, “I told all of our friends that you are not allowed to do anything (fun) with them until November”. Ahh, it makes me both happy and sad. I’m happy because he really cares and he knows I need him to keep steady at making progress. I’m sad because… well it sucks.

It is tough to work full day and then switch gears to the dissertation at night. I love my work and it is very demanding and I get involved in projects I don’t always have time for. So by 5pm I’m spent. Many times I’m not even done with work by 5 pm.

But for these two months I must be brutal. I have to say “no” to whatever steals my time away from the preparation for the oral exam, whether it is extra work, outings with friends, movies, internet, and maybe even more essential things such as cooking and some sleep.

So how did I do yesterday? Not bad overall. I finished the next two sections of the paper. And they both look terrible at this point, but hey at least there is something to look at. I did figure out that the examples I intended for the paper are not the best ones and so I spent some time trying to find other examples. That meant waddling in a lot of mathematical equations for awhile until I gave up looking for a perfect example and instead chose the one that makes enough sense. Let’s see what my co-authors say about this. If they don’t like it, I’ll keep on searching.

I’m getting better with perfectionism cravings. When I realize that I’m trying to perfect something, I glance at a clock in the bottom of the screen and give myself 5-10 more minutes to figure it out and that’s it. No more. Move on to the next part. It helps me get things done on time. But what will I think of it on Saturday when I’m putting everything together? I might be quite mad at myself for doing such a terrible sloppy job.

Today I got two last sections to go. Is that really it? This seemingly immeasurable paper somehow fit into a finite number of sections? Amazing!