Yes. Yes, this graphic depicts my state of being at the moment. (However, if this graphic were true to life, it would have a dress. You know, to show that I'm female.) But I've digressed.
Headless. I am headless. My brain is mush. My eyes are shot. My back hurts from sitting at a computer for weeks on end. I'm not thinking clearly in any sort of way. I am spinning my wheels with the dissertation, reading and moving the same few paragraphs over and over and over. None of it makes sense right now.
I have one chapter to finish (analysis) and two more to finalize (intro and conclusion). Then I'm done. I have 10 days, and while I don't want to psyche myself out, I'm not sure I'm going to make it. As I noted before, this is a soft deadline, one I set for myself, so if I don't make that 8/22 deadline, the world won't come crashing down around me, but still. I'll keep on with it. One step in front of the next. Eventually I'll get there.
But in the midst of this fatigue, a list of 10 good things:
- I truly can see the end of this project. Last night, I started making mental plans for my home office when I throw away all the copied journal articles I have. The space it'll open up!
- I know more about intercollegiate athletics (in Division I-A) than I ever hoped to know.
- I have saved money by not eating out.
- I feel smart.
- I see how my work can be generalized beyond the subgroup of student-athletes I am writing about. This work can be useful with almost any marginalized student group.
- I have a healthy research agenda based on this dissertation (and all those things I could not include).
- I like my subject, and I like (very much) the students I had in this study.
- I appreciate the nexus of critical pedagogy with feminist pedagogy . . . relational pedagogy.
- I like that I have worked very hard on this project. (No one else will probably ever read the whole thing, but I know what went into producing it.)
- I know the project is on "the tip of my tongue," and I like how that feels.
- I can't wait to get back to Project 365. I miss the creative outlet photography gives me.