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October 11, 2020

In true Mandy fashion, I started writing this introductory blog post in May 2019 and forgot about it for two whole months. Now, waiting in the dentist's office (it's July 31st, 2019) twelve minutes past my appointment time, I randomly thought about it again. And OH HELLO it is January 19, 2020 and I realized I never actually posted this when it was completely written and ready to go. And, WHAT DO YOU KNOW, it's now actually October 11, 2020 during what can only be known as Plague Year. 

OPE. 

Welcome to A Summer Night's Ope, in which I share drabbles of my life as a quirky, ambitious, daydreaming PhD student in composition and rhetoric. Well, candidate now, as my exams and prospectus are done and I am moving into dissertation work. 

Below was my original first post that I still feel obligated to share for archiving purposes and to remember what it feels like to be a first-year PhD student. Afterward is a coda.

INTRODUCTION

It's 8:52am on Friday, May 31st. I've been awake since 6am. I've checked email, browsed social media, looked at my Google Calendar, listened to music, and done everything except start work on the handout for the conference I'm presenting at in two weeks (and that I was scheduled to begin working on at 8am this morning).

Yesterday I arrived to campus at 8:30am fresh-faced with a box of donuts to share with my colleagues at the writing center. I made it to my 9am meeting. I completed the tasks I was assigned to do. I enjoyed doing them. I was on my game. 

But today is not that day. Today, I am writing this blog, shuffling around the work I have to do, procrastinating on cooking breakfast, and longing to stay home all day in my pajamas writing fanfiction and playing video games.

It is the summer after the first year of my PhD, and I am feeling that academic pressure to get going and keep pushing, without even knowing what I'm supposed to be pushing for. And I am doing my best to keep that impulse at bay. Hopefully this blog can help (LOL clearly it didn't because I forgot about it multiple times, so oh well). 

SUMMER GOALS

Here is what I ambitiously laid out as my summer 2k19 (or is it 20k9? I never know...) goals:

• Finish an article draft with my co-author
• Finish a chapter draft with another co-author
• Present at 3 conferences
• Work two summer positions
• Figure out the direction of my PhD reading list
• Binge watch at least three TV shows
• Update my ongoing fanfic stories

That's a lot. It's easy to list out, but it'll be harder to actually accomplish, I know. And I'd like to reflect here on three key principles about writing and learning (from where I work at the Howe Center for Writing Excellence; the full list can be found here) that I need to remind myself during this time of the academic year and at this stage of my doctoral studies.

1. New and unfamiliar writing tasks can impact a writer’s performance in areas where they are usually highly competent. This is a normal part of learning.

This is a normal part of learning, and a normal part of being a graduate student. I've found this in my own research as well, where I asked both graduate students and graduate faculty about the areas in which graduate students struggle. Most of what they've said are really complex, intricate, and disciplinary-specific parts of writing, like completing a literature review (which requires extensive knowledge and familiarity with an area of study) and discussing lab results (which requires a certain amount of confidence and mastery as well). 

I've never been a PhD student before. This is my first and only time. Of course there is a learning curve, and of course writing these publications are challenging for me. I'm accepting it as normal. I'm accepting that I'm no less competent than I was before, but am truly learning as I advance to a different rhetorical genre. But this is easier said than done, of course. 

2. Reflection and metacognition are important parts of improving as a writer.

And such reflection and metacognition is hard to forcibly produce and monitor in your gcal! I actually thought about my handout in the shower yesterday, realizing I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask the people in my roundtable and had more questions than answers. That's reflection. That's a stride toward improvement on the eventual end product that is "presenting at the conference." This is important—I know this is important—and it is something I can't always control. I am going to work toward making this reflection more explicit and transparent. 

3. Writing is social and rhetorical; writers benefit from talking and sharing drafts with other writers.

I can't do this alone. The image of the genius writer locking themselves up in their study to crank out a masterpiece novel is wrong and ridiculous. I know that! I learn best when I talk to people about my writing, when I text my friend a couple sentences of a chapter, when I burst into my mentor's office and ask her why research is so hard. I value this principle at the conceptual level as well, for my best ideas are born of generative conversations with colleagues.

This is yet another thing I need to remind myself and practice purposefully and mindfully, now and throughout my PhD degree. And it's something I feel confident I can continue as I progress. 

Well, folks, today is July 31st and I have not accomplished all of the goals I listed out at the beginning of this post. I did present at the three conferences (whyyyy did I do that to myself) and work my two campus jobs (so much work), but my co-authors and I are nowhere near finished with our respective article drafts. We've made solid progress, but we aren't there yet. We are keeping it moving. 

I did a lot this summer. I really did! And summer isn't over yet. I still have a few weeks. Next time I'll share some of my goals for this coming semester, which will be the second year of my PhD and my penultimate last semester of coursework EVER. For now, I'm still waiting at the dentist's office (27 minutes past my appointment time now absgxjwbehdokbeh) and am going to focus my energy on being calm and patient and not getting up and leaving.

CODA 

Year two of the PhD is now long behind me, and so many things have happened. I plan to spend more time on this blog discussing my research and my experiences and my struggles and my triumphs, but I think the most important thing to note here is: flexibility is key. 

Spring 2020 was a complete and UTTER DISASTER. Nothing turned out like any of us planned or could have even anticipated. So many more important things were happening in the world, which made things like publishing and studying feel quite trivial and worthless at times. If anything, I've definitely gained more perspective, realizing that while getting a PhD kinda sucks and is really hard, I am, you know, healthy and safe and financially stable as I live with my mom again as we continue on during this pandemic. 

But, to go back to goals, I got the reading list submitted in February. I then successfully took and passed my comprehensive exam in August & September, with the prospectus closely following on October 1. My co-author and I finished the one chapter around April, and my other co-author and I just submitted our article draft this past Friday. 

In this way, I both accomplished my goals while changing and adjusting them. I'm currently writing a dissertation I couldn't have even fathomed writing back in May 2019 when I first started this entry. Spring and summer 2020 changed me not only in the obvious, quarantined ways but also intellectually. My thinking and I grew up and matured a bit, as it does during a process of change. And it all worked out and is going to be fine. 

Who knows if I'll actually keep up with this blog. I love to write, academically and also recreationally with my fanfiction, so I thought I might enjoy writing personally, too. So we'll see, but whatever the outcome, it'll be quite alright, because the nature of life and of writing is to adapt and change along the way.