Semi-Break from Blogging

My dissertation has taken yet another really frustrating turn. Rather than fill this blog with anxiety-ridden posts I'm just going to take a step back for a while.

For those who care, my writing is coming, but coming badly. I have hundreds of pages of unorganized, unfocused analysis - all of which is "interesting", but not cohesive in the way it needs to be to satisfy the requirements of your basic undergrad paper, much less a PhD thesis. Thanks to the intrepid efforts of some of these readers, it's beginning to take shape, but slowly and painfully. i have over 460 pages written - but at least 1/2 is in a form that needs to be substantially re-worked, and the best half still requires a lot of editing. I'm beginning to realize that my goal of graduating in June (requiring a full draft of the diss complete by beginning of Spring term), is not likely. August or September is more realistic. I'm fortunate to have the support of other recent finishers who went through the same process and keep reminding me "it'll be done when it's done, just keep working." Wonderful support, but personally disappointing. Not necessarily b/c I'm "failing" to meet my goal of graduating in June, but because it means prolonging my life as dissertation writer - a phase of my life that I cannot wait to be over. I need to be finished with this work because I'm tired of looking at my computer screen and crying, or trying to talk about my work and crying, or glancing at my inbox and crying. See the pattern here?

On the other hand, I've never been so relieved not to have gotten any job nibbles. This is reaffirming my decision not to pursue positions at Research Universities and to keep my focus on 4-year teaching schools and community colleges. Thinking about where I am now and what I see when I see our younger faculty facing tenure review, I am deeply confirmed that I don't want that life. I love teaching. I want to teach. I like professional development from a pedagogical perspective. I have a great idea for a book based on my current work but designed for undergraduate classroom use that I'm really jazzed about. I want to revisit my 1st year interviews with the Ritchie Boys and write something about them. Moving forward, I want to focus on making history accessible for undergrads and non-historians much more than I want to continue the intellectual gymnastics I feel like I'm am currently performing, all in hopes of desperate approval from the 2, maybe 4 people who will ever read my work. It's like perfecting a dance routine that you only perform in front of the mirror.

In the meantime, I've developed a ganglion cyst on my left wrist from all the typing (and knitting that I do for stress relief). It likely started several years ago as I've had problems with the wrist for a long time, but is really inflamed at the present time. Typing inflames the tendons, but typing is what I need to do to work. (yes, I'm looking into voice to text software and doing the most I can in hand written work in order to minimize typing). In the interests of self-care I am putting down the knitting (sob), and trying to restrict my typing to thesis-related stuff.

I'll probably post every other week or so, but not much more than that in the foreseeable future.