Burn This *&$#@-Thesis Down Writing Retreat –Day 1

4 days and a 40,000 word PhD thesis to write… Totally do-able right?? Of course, I am not starting from scratch- I’ve got about 30,000 words in a very messy, chaotic mess of a draft… I’m hoping being here (looks pretty ideal, right?) Will just push me over the “get this sucker done” huge wall thatContinue reading “Burn This *&$#@-Thesis Down Writing Retreat –Day 1”

Rejection Perfection

Loving this article by the writer Kim Liao about having a rejection goal for the year. She shot for 100 rejections, and while she fell short of that goal (she got 43) she did get 5 acceptances- which, as she points out, would have felt like a daunting number to aim for. A little reverseContinue reading “Rejection Perfection”

And the winner is…

Here’s a little in the spirit of “sometimes it IS worth it” or it gets better…” or “keep going even if you think your research is rubbish”. My very first published article won the Voice and Speech Review Forum Article of the Year Award. I was absolutely floored that I had won. Countless times overContinue reading “And the winner is…”

Sh*t just got real…

OK- so I am not really sure that “the sh*t just got real” thing works in this context– I just really wanted an excuse to say that. But, if it means that I need to really get my rear in gear– or my submission date is looming (September 29!!!) and I still do not have aContinue reading “Sh*t just got real…”

Woo-Woo-PhD-ing

  Sooooo… have any other doctoral researchers out there resorted to obsessively reading their horoscope in an effort to figure out what the hell they are supposed to be doing and how the H-E-double-hockey-sticks one is supposed to do this??? Yeah, me neither, I was asking for a friend… We are serious academics people!!! ButContinue reading “Woo-Woo-PhD-ing”

How (not) to write a PhD and keep/lose your sanity…

When I am feeling my most discouraged and whipped by this PhD I tend to start listing mentally, everything that has happened in my life over the past 2.5 years that have made it impossible for me to “properly” get this thing done. Pathetic, I know- but somehow I think it is kind of aContinue reading “How (not) to write a PhD and keep/lose your sanity…”

Adrenaline junkie…who me?

Several years ago a colleague in academia commented to me that procrastinators are adrenaline junkies, and I think about that idea every single freakin’ time I am writing or working on something, especially if it has a deadline.  It can be a paper, an article, rehearsing a show, marking student assignments, pizza lunch forms forContinue reading “Adrenaline junkie…who me?”

Build Me Up Break Me Down

I’ve realized I spend an awful lot of my time trying to form habits… the good ones, the productive and creative ones. Whether it is with my running, my health, finances, or my academics, I would say I am a bit obsessed with habits, and rituals. In my first year of my PhD I readContinue reading “Build Me Up Break Me Down”