Crabby Ph.D.

[ithelpstodream]

[crabbyphd]

I met this beautiful woodland kitty on my evening walk and it was everything.

[fluffytherapy]

[crabbyphd]

Kitties 'n books ❤️

[crabbyphd]

You can almost see the homicidal fantasies going around in his head...

[crabbyphd]

Today I wrote 6.5 very messy pages. I will have to overhaul a lot of what I did but I also got my ideas out, soon to be polished into something coherent. On the way home, I met this iridescent bug flying around and I took her picture because she was so beautiful. It's been a day.

[crabbyphd]

Today, I went to the library to look at a cd-rom database of texts for my research. This is what I saw when I opened it. Seriously considering submitting this as my dissertation. Also, I give up.

[crabbyphd]

Accomplishing... something?

Well, today was a bit of a fail work-wise. Other than editing and finalizing a conference abstract, I didn't get anything done... What I did do, though, is Skype with an old friend, bake banana chocolate chip oatmeal cups for my breakfast for the rest of the week, do laundry, clean up the kitchen, and swim 28 laps at the pool. I often forget that there was a period of my life not too long ago when today's activities would have seemed entirely insurmountable -- this following a traumatic event. As a result, I would try to reward myself for any small thing I did, even if it was a perfectly normal daily activity... It's been a while since I let myself feel accomplished after a day like today, but I am feeling it anyway. If it means that the rest of the week will be more organized and balanced, it was the right thing to do. Tomorrow, back to the diss.

[crabbyphd]

Two work screens, coffee, chocolate, and my favorite shell 🐚 from the beach. Today a friend from my choir suggested I approach my dissertation work as a process of repeatedly grabbing the lowest hanging fruit. Don't look towards the finished product, look towards the next and least taxing thing you can do. That could be a couple of pages of writing a day, or it could be creating tables and diagrams to be included in the finished product. I think this is a perspective that could finally get me past my fear of writing. Just one small task at a time... 🍇🍓🍊🍐🍎🍒🍑

[crabbyphd]

So I just went for an insane run in 85-degree weather. I had to stop multiple times and it hurt like hell but now it's done. 4.5 miles, approximately 5 liters of sweat. Now it's time to get back to the diss for the evening... Is it weird that putting my body through that kind of pain actually feels like a relief?

[cancerbiophd]

grad school be like

simultaneously knowing so much but also not remembering a single goddamn thing when the time comes

[crabbyphd]

So much this.

[crabbyphd]

On a boring Thursday morning, A giant kitty sleeps In a tiny basket, Contemplating The bike and balcony garden Just beyond his grasp.

[crabbyphd]

This week has been really up and down so far, but the memory of this beautiful stormy-ocean evening has been keeping me going strong. ❤️

[crabbyphd]

Trying again

Hello tumblr, My name is Liz and I am a Ph.D. candidate in a humanities field, desperately trying to finish writing my dissertation in the next year. I like crabs and cats, reading and running, singing and lifting, the ocean and the forest, traveling and being with my loved ones... This is not my first time on this medium. I had another blog several years ago and ended up deleting it largely due to my own fear of expressing myself and the frustration and distraction that was causing me. I know it probably sounds crazy to over-analyze every word, phrase, sentence for something as informal as a personal blog. And, certainly, the experience of being in grad school hasn't helped. After all, what will I write here that anyone might even feel like reading? I'm not really sure I have anything worthwhile to say, but I will try to say something nonetheless. About research, writing, exercise, food, travel, and my love for animals... I doubt it will be a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, but it will be my words out in the open. So basically I am back here for two main reasons: 1. I want to overcome my self-loathing and fear when it comes to voicing my own thoughts and experiences in a public forum. You would think that this would be easy given my choice of profession, but it is a problem that I have actually found to be increasingly debilitating over the course of writing my dissertation. It's time to confront that head on. 2. Since my last foray into blogging, I have largely lost my in-person social network -- an all-too-common hazard of doing a PhD in a small college town where friends and colleagues are always in flux. I want a community -- one that won't fall apart when people move or change jobs, one that might help me to move on myself...