Sobriquet 38.18

The following post was originally published on 1/18/08.

Although it is relatively early still, and while I am not feeling very tired, I want to at least attempt to get myself in bed at a time that makes sense for a person with the schedule I have this semester. So I will keep this brief.

I did get another page written, but I am keenly aware of an increasing vehemence growing inside me with which I want to stomp around yelling "I hate this!" I've said all this before, so I will not repeat myself at length, but it's hard not to think about the 250-300 pages I need to write in addition to what I have already done and when that thought crosses my mind (as it does with quite a bit of regularity), I get really, really frustrated.

In fact, the only reason I wrote anything today was because I wanted so desperately not to write anything. I figure that each welling up of frustration, each swell of anxiety, represents a challenge. This challenge--either I push past the negative feelings and frustration or I don't, really, amounts to the entire struggle to write this dissertation. If I accept the challenge and push through, I'm a bit closer to the end; if I don't, I make it easier to turn away from the work again. So I wrote another page because I hate quitting more than almost anything.

And the funny thing was, after I had written the page, I thought to myself "wow, I have some free time now...this ain't so bad."

(But between you and me, it was bad).

I also read more of The Master of Petersburg.

For tomorrow: Since it looks like tomorrow will be an exceedingly long day, and since I imagine I will be very tired, I won't assign any writing, but I will try to finish The Master of Petersburg before going to bed for the night.