My Dissertation is Killing Me! Or, at the very least, it's the bane of my existence.

Well, it's not killing me literally, but perhaps all of the stress it causes could potentially kill me.  And I might mention that I'm only in the baby stages--I'm still working on my prospectus, which is a whole two pages long (four if you count my tentative bibliography).  So I've got a long road ahead of me before I defend.  But the whole darn shebang is so stressful because I'm FRUSTRATED (so frustrated I had to put it in caps).  Because....I've got writer's block.  Writing my two pages was like pulling teeth.  And a dissertation is book length!  This trend just can't continue.

Maybe it's just this time of year.  The end of the semester is always stressful, and I feel like everyone is breathing down my back to get absolutely everything done--particularly my chair.  She's not really breathing down my back because she is crazy awesome, but there's a tiny version of her living in my head (wearing a a very bright multi-colored poncho) who's constantly telling me that I should drop whatever it is I'm doing to work on my prospectus.  .

I have a meeting with her on Monday.  She wants me to fill out some university computer program thing that's designed to help me set my goals, which at the time will seem super helpful (because I know I need guidelines and structure) but will cause me no end of stress later on.  And we'll probably talk about my prospectus too, which is shorter than it was the last time I talked to her because I took out the sucky parts.

I have to constantly remind myself that I VOLUNTEERED for this.  I love what I do, and there is nothing more that I want than to be an English professor so that I can spend my life sharing the literature I love with others.  But I'm not there yet, and I've got a long way to go.  So in the meantime, I'm going to watch Doctor Who, and not think about my prospectus until tomorrow because I've just now made a vow that I shouldn't work on it  or think about it on Saturday nights.

So, imaginary readers out there, you go enjoy Doctor Who too.  It's an awesome show, worthy of our love and adoration.