Monday, September 06, 2010
Labored Days Ahead
I confess, gentle readers, that the past few weeks have not been easy ones for the Invisible Ben. Despite a safe and, with the exception of local commuter rail, speedy return from the Land of the Rising Sun, the residual effects of jet lag have only now begun to disappear. More permanent, I fear, are the challenges associated with establishing a new work schedule now that things are finally cleaned up around the new apartment.
The trouble is as follows. Right now, I am at a bit of an interim phase so far as my dissertation is concerned. My adviser has told me that now is a good time to stop, revise the three chapters I've written thus far, and then move on to start Chapter 4. All well and good...in theory. In practice, well, that's where things get messy. First off, revision in this case does not merely entail abridging a chapter so that it fits a preordained page limit or searching for grammatical errors. In addition to these mundane tasks, I need to somehow refine my arguments so that they are more...substantial, ideally coming up with a set of underlying themes that link the three together. And in order to substantiate those themes, and confirm the dissertation's relevance to the broader scholarly community, I must do some serious digging in the secondary (and possibly primary) literature on the subject of Cold War innovation.
In other words, I need to hit the books, and hard, even if I don't know precisely which books to read or precisely what it is I'm seeking. Moreover, I then need to take what I've found and streamline what I saw at one point as reasonable chapters into something entirely new. And, I have to do all this without the luxury of having everything in one place.
This last point is the one that's causing me the most stress right now. During my fellowship, I had an office. In that office, I placed everything associated with my dissertation. It was all in one place. Most convenient. When I went to work in the morning, it was there waiting for me. When I was done, I could leave it all behind and go home. Now, I'm back on campus. I have an office setup here in my new apartment. (The Invisible Homestead? I haven't quite come up with a good name for the place.) I have a nice bookshelf full of materials associated with my dissertation, not to mention file boxes, etc. loaded to the brim with relevant documentation. All well and good, but the separation which I enjoyed in my previous work setup is utterly lacking. Nor can I expect the same degree of access to research related materials at home as I used to have in my office. Ideally, I would just set up shop in the university library, but my old workspace (a seminar room) has been coopted and transformed into a publicly available classroom, meaning that I can't just transfer all of my work materials. I do have a carrel available in the graduate student study area, but I prefer to work in private.
So now, I'm left in the awkward position of having to reestablish my work routines. I need to figure out where...and how...I am going to work on my dissertation for the next year and whether or not I should be spending the majority of my research and writing time at the library or at home. All in all, I'm not thrilled about the prospect of having to readjust. I wish I had an office at the library with a door. But I don't. And I probably won't have an office of that sort again unless I can somehow: a. finish the dissertation b. get a job c. convince my new bosses that I deserve an office.
Until then, I think I should try to set a slightly more reasonable short-term goal. By the end of this month, I would like to have an established working routine in place. Until then, I am going to give myself permission to experiment with various means of striking a work-home balance and I will try not to beat myself up too hard if I slip up or make mistakes. But by the time October rolls around, I'd damn well better have things in order.
There's too much to do before the end of the year...and I can't afford to fail.
I confess, gentle readers, that the past few weeks have not been easy ones for the Invisible Ben. Despite a safe and, with the exception of local commuter rail, speedy return from the Land of the Rising Sun, the residual effects of jet lag have only now begun to disappear. More permanent, I fear, are the challenges associated with establishing a new work schedule now that things are finally cleaned up around the new apartment.
The trouble is as follows. Right now, I am at a bit of an interim phase so far as my dissertation is concerned. My adviser has told me that now is a good time to stop, revise the three chapters I've written thus far, and then move on to start Chapter 4. All well and good...in theory. In practice, well, that's where things get messy. First off, revision in this case does not merely entail abridging a chapter so that it fits a preordained page limit or searching for grammatical errors. In addition to these mundane tasks, I need to somehow refine my arguments so that they are more...substantial, ideally coming up with a set of underlying themes that link the three together. And in order to substantiate those themes, and confirm the dissertation's relevance to the broader scholarly community, I must do some serious digging in the secondary (and possibly primary) literature on the subject of Cold War innovation.
In other words, I need to hit the books, and hard, even if I don't know precisely which books to read or precisely what it is I'm seeking. Moreover, I then need to take what I've found and streamline what I saw at one point as reasonable chapters into something entirely new. And, I have to do all this without the luxury of having everything in one place.
This last point is the one that's causing me the most stress right now. During my fellowship, I had an office. In that office, I placed everything associated with my dissertation. It was all in one place. Most convenient. When I went to work in the morning, it was there waiting for me. When I was done, I could leave it all behind and go home. Now, I'm back on campus. I have an office setup here in my new apartment. (The Invisible Homestead? I haven't quite come up with a good name for the place.) I have a nice bookshelf full of materials associated with my dissertation, not to mention file boxes, etc. loaded to the brim with relevant documentation. All well and good, but the separation which I enjoyed in my previous work setup is utterly lacking. Nor can I expect the same degree of access to research related materials at home as I used to have in my office. Ideally, I would just set up shop in the university library, but my old workspace (a seminar room) has been coopted and transformed into a publicly available classroom, meaning that I can't just transfer all of my work materials. I do have a carrel available in the graduate student study area, but I prefer to work in private.
So now, I'm left in the awkward position of having to reestablish my work routines. I need to figure out where...and how...I am going to work on my dissertation for the next year and whether or not I should be spending the majority of my research and writing time at the library or at home. All in all, I'm not thrilled about the prospect of having to readjust. I wish I had an office at the library with a door. But I don't. And I probably won't have an office of that sort again unless I can somehow: a. finish the dissertation b. get a job c. convince my new bosses that I deserve an office.
Until then, I think I should try to set a slightly more reasonable short-term goal. By the end of this month, I would like to have an established working routine in place. Until then, I am going to give myself permission to experiment with various means of striking a work-home balance and I will try not to beat myself up too hard if I slip up or make mistakes. But by the time October rolls around, I'd damn well better have things in order.
There's too much to do before the end of the year...and I can't afford to fail.
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